As Indian advertising outperforms global markets, WPP focuses on AI
IT services companies which are trying to adapt. Established network agency companies are struggling to stay relevant as advertisers turn to AI to not just generate creatives, but also conduct market research and run campaigns end-to-end.
Investors has taken note of the shift: shares of WPP Plc are down more than 60% in the last 12 months, while those of rival Publicis Groupe have fallen nearly 28% in the same time period.Two of WPP's rivals—Omnicom and IPG—merged late last year to ward off rising competition from technology companies, especially AI platforms. Meanwhile, AI consumer apps are on a roll, signing multiple partnerships in India.
Just this week, OpenAI announced partnerships for search with streaming platform JioHotstar and online travel aggregator ixigo.In this context, it is telling that the This Year Next Year presentation was dominated by the rise of AI.In a first, WPP Media has changed the way it classifies advertising channels. Now, ‘digital’ advertising includes the digital extensions of traditional mediums, including streaming platforms of TV channels, audio streaming apps, and online extensions of print publications.
Search, disrupted by AI chatbots, is now reclassified as 'intelligence’, while a variety of traditional physical advertising mediums are now classified as ‘location’ advertising, including billboards and cinema trailers.This presents a new way of understanding global advertising. More than 57% of global advertising was driven by content and more than 80% of all categories of global advertising (including content) was from digital channels, including digital extensions of traditional formats such as TV, print and audio.Led by more than 10% growth in ‘intelligence’ and more than 9% growth
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